On June 30, the first memorial in Ukraine to the victims of the Jewish pogroms of the Civil War of 1918-1920 was opened in Tetiiv, Kyiv region. In March 1920, about 4,000 Jews were exterminated in the town.
This was reported by UNIAN.
We emphasize that we are talking about the victims of the pogroms, not the Holocaust. There are many such memorials in Ukraine, in particular, in Tetiiv. However, it is the first time when the memory of the victims of the pogroms in Ukraine is honored.
The idea of creating the memorial belongs to the deputy mayor of Tetiiv Olena Kotseruba. The project was implemented with the support of the mayor Roman Maistruk and the head of the public organization "United community - united purpose" Oleksandr Kotseruba, Olena's husband.
The memorial was opened on the territory of the former Jewish cemetery.
"When I first heard about the Jewish history of the town it was from my deputy Olena Kotseruba," said Mayor of Tetiiv. "Archival documents were shocking: a hundred years ago the city was destroyed in a pogrom. Actually, it was a mixture of shock and surprise because so far, Tetiiv did not even have a plaque mentioning those horrible events."
About 200,000 people died in the Jewish pogroms during the Civil War.
At one time, Tetiiv was a Jewish town, and more than 80% of its inhabitants were Jews. Yet for many years there have been no Jews at all.
A terrible pogrom in March 1920, carried out by a detachment of Ataman Overko Kuravsky, destroyed three-quarters of the community - 4,000 people.
"When we were building the memorial, there were a lot of children around," Roman Maistruk said. "They are truly interested in this story. If these children do not just read the inscriptions on the monument but draw conclusions, our town has a future."